F  CAITF.  HBRARY,  I'GS  "AH GEL' 


MAIN-STREET 


Of  this  edition  950  copies 
were  printed  including  75 
copies  on  Japan  vellum. 


MAIN-STREET 


NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE 


PREFACE 


JULIAN  HAWTHORNE 


THE   KIRGATE   PRESS 

LEWIS  BUDDT  3RD 

AT  'HILLSIDE,'  IN  CANTON 

PENNSYLVANIA 

MCM&I 


PREFACE 

Copyrighted,  1901 

BY  LEWIS  BUDDY  3RD. 


PS 

/ 

M 


1G74S48 


PREFACE. 


IT  WAS  one  of  the  early  literary  projects  of  Nathaniel 
Hawthorne  to  put  life  into  the  dead  body  of  New  England 
historical  annals.  How  lifeless  those  annals  were  we  may 
discover  by  hunting  them  up  on  the  dust-covered  shelves  of 
antiquarian  libraries ;  and  the  enterprise  of  endowing  them 
with  bloom  and  fragrance  would  seem  as  hopeless  an  one 
as  could  be  proposed  to  a  literary  man.  But  Hawthorne 
possessed  creative  genius,  and  that  made  all  the  difference. 
He  himself  was  able  to  see  through  the  veil  of  the  printed 
page  of  the  old  annalist,  and  to  behold  rising  before  his 
imaginative  vision,  the  world  and  the  personages  that  had 
been,  warm  with  life  and  glowing  with  color  and  passion. 
This  vision  he  aimed  to  communicate,  by  the  art  of  lucid 
and  vivid  portrayal  and  suggestion,  in  which  he  has  had  no 
superior,  to  his  fellow  citizens ;  by  this  beneficent  spell  he 
wrought  upon  them  to  make  the  acquaintance  of  their  own 
past.  It  was  in  work  of  this  kind,  having  this  tendency, 
that  the  foundation  of  his  genius  first  declared  itself;  and 
it  is  not  unlikely  that,  for  several  years,  Hawthorne  cher- 
ished the  purpose  of  covering  the  entire  historical  ground 


PR E  FA C  E 


of  New  England  in  this  manner.  And  although  the  attrac- 
tion towards  purely  imaginative  work,  especially  in  the 
creation  of  character,  became  too  strong  for  him  to  resist 
it,  yet  it  will  be  noticed  that  even  in  his  famous  romances — 
The  Scarlet  Letter,  The  House  of  the  Seven  Gables,  and 
The  Blithedale  Romance,  and,  at  the  end  of  his  life,  in  the 
posthumous  stories  of  Septimius  and  The  Dolliver  Ro- 
mance, he  uniformly  kept  very  close  to  a  historical  back- 
ground and  basis;  and  the  characters  were  carefully 
modelled  to  be  in  keeping  with  the  historical  period.  These 
books  might  be  regarded  as  historical  illustrations,  in  some- 
what the  same  sense  that  the  volumes  of  Balzac's  Comedie 
Humaine  illustrate  the  social  aspects  of  Paris  and  France, 
though,  of  course,  with  less  realistic  attention  to  detail. 
But,  iu  addition  to  these,  there  are  many  short  pieces  which 
are  technically  historical  both  in  character  and  episode, 
though  illuminated,  as  has  been  said,  by  the  power  of  see- 
ing the  past  as  present  which  distinguished  the  author. 
Were  all  these  pieces  to  be  collected,  and  chronologically 
arranged,  they  would  be  found  to  comprise  no  small  part  of 
New  England  history  during  the  seventeenth  and  eighteenth 
centuries. 

Probably  no  better  example  of  the  kind  of  work  under 
discussion  could  be  selected  than  the  little  narrative  which 


P R E FA C  E 


is  contained  in  this  volume.  It  was  written  before  Haw- 
thorne had  attained  an  international  reputation,  and  is  con- 
cerned with  the  progress  of  civilization  in  the  region  which 
gave  him  birth  —  the  venerable  town  of  Salem,  in  Mas- 
sachusetts. The  books  upon  the  subject  which  were  pub- 
lished at  the  time  Hawthorne  wrote,  were  few,  and  their 
contents  were  dry  and  unattractive  to  the  last  degree ;  very 
likely  they  were  supplemented  by  traditions  and  tales 
handed  down  from  generation  to  generation,  which  had 
come  to  his  knowledge  when,  as  a  boy,  he  sat  by  the  broad 
hearthstone  of  his  old-fashioned  home,  and  listened  to 
legends  and  accounts  of  personal  experience  from  the 
mouths  of  the  old  men  and  women  of  that  day,  now  seventy 
or  eighty  years  gone  by.  Hawthorne  was  born  in  1804; 
and  the  memories  of  those  who  were  old  when  he  was 
young,  went  back  nearly  to  the  beginning  of  the  previous 
century,  and  were  re-enforced  by  lore  derived  from  their 
own  forbears,  which  extended  to  the  early  years  of  the 
New  England  settlement.  The  mind  of  the  boy  was  fer- 
tile soil,  and  in  due  season  it  reproduced  what  seeds  had 
been  dropped  into  it,  rich  and  sumptuous  with  a  new  life. 
Under  his  management,  the  story  ceases  to  seem  like  what 
we  are  wont  to  call  history,  and  takes  on  the  hue  and 
charm  of  imaginative  invention.  Yet  when  we  come  to 


PREFACE 


examine  it  more  closely,  we  are  surprised  to  find  how  very 
slightly  the  facts  are  modified  by  the  setting ;  and  on  the 
other  hand,  how  much  more  realisable  the  facts  become 
when  presented  in  the  Hawthornesque  style.  The  device 
used  is  of  the  simplest  kind;  but  with  what  skill  and 
charm  is  it  handled !  A  travelling  showman  is  conceived 
as  having  set  up  his  panorama  in  the  town  whose  past  it 
depicts,  and,  as  he  turns  the  crank  which  causes  the  painted 
canvas  to  pass  before  the  spectator,  he  endeavors  to  aid  the 
illusion  by  commenting  upon  the  successive  scenes.  In  his 
little  audience  are  types  of  the  various  kinds  of  persons 
who  might  be  supposed  to  represent  the  several  forms  of 
public  opinion  upon  such  performances ;  the  dry  and  crab- 
bed old  gentleman,  who  refuses  to  see  any  illusion  at  all, 
and  will  only  point  out  the  defects  of  the  canvas  and  the 
lapses  from  strict  historic  accuracy ;  beside  him  the  gentle 
and  sympathetic  young  woman,  who  allows  her  imagination 
to  become  kindled  by  the  scene,  and  to  discover  in  it  all 
and  more  than  all  that  the  showman  had  intended.  The 
eloquence  and  modest  patience  of  the  latter  personage 
meanwhile  impart  a  winning  fascination  to  the  whole 
transaction ;  and  when  the  hitch  occurs  in  the  machinery, 
which  prevents  the  appearance  of  the  prophetic  pictures 
which  were  in  reserve,  we  close  the  little  book  with  regret , 

8 


PREFACE 


feeling  that  we  have  been  brought  into  wonderfully  close 
communion  with  the  episodes  and  scenes  which  progres- 
sively led  from  the  first  opening  of  the  path  in  the  primeval 
forest  where  the  Indians  walked,  to  the  contemporary 
bustle  and  civilized  prosperity  of  the  city  thoroughfare.  It 
is  all  so  lightly,  so  humorously,  and  so  delicately  done  that 
it  seems  to  do  itself;  and  its  artistic  keeping  and  lovely 
literary  style  cause  it  to  dwell  ineffaceably  in  the  memory. 
One  cannot  help  wishing  that  the  same  showman  who 
operated  the  panorama  of  "Main-street"  could  have  been 
encouraged  to  extend  his  scheme  so  as  to  cover  wider 
canvases  in  our  national  history. 

And  such,  no  doubt,  might  have  been  the  case,  had  the 
audience  for  good  and  original  writing  been  even  approx- 
imately so  large  and  discriminating  in  1840  as  it  is  in  1901. 
But  Hawthorne,  as  he  himself  has  told  us,  felt  during  the 
early  years  of  his  literary  labor  like  one  who  speaks  into 
the  void,  whence  no  response  is  returned.  The  periodicals 
in  which  his  pieces  were  published  had  a  very  limited 
circulation  —  hundreds  of  copies  were  sold  where  now 
would  be  sold  tens  of  thousands ;  and,  to  quote  his  own 
words,  "  he  had  no  incitement  to  literary  effort  in  a  reason- 
able prospect  of  reputation  or  profit ;  nothing  but  the 
pleasure  itself  of  composition.  —  an  enjoyment  not  at  all 


PREFACE 


amiss  in  its  way,  and  perhaps  essential  to  the  merit  of  the 
work  in  hand,  but  which,  in  the  long  run,  will  hardly  keep 
the  chill  out  of  a  writer's  heart,  or  the  numbness  out  of 
his  fingers." 

It  is  different  now;  but  Hawthorne  is  no  more.  It  is 
pleasant  to  note,  however,  that  enterprising  publishers  are 
bringing  the  public  into  better  acquaintance  with  the  things 
he  left  behind  him ;  and  the  multiplication  of  such  volumes 
as  the  present  one  cannot  but  make  for  the  credit  of  our 
literature,  and  for  the  edification  of  our  readers. 

JULIAN  HAWTHORNE. 
March,  1901. 


10 


MAIN-STREET 


RESPECTABLE-looking  individual 
makes  his  bow,  and  addresses  the  public. 
In  my  daily  walks  along  the  principal 
street  of  my  native  town,  it  has  often  oc- 
curred to  me,  that,  if  its  growth  from  infancy  up- 
ward, and  the  vicissitude  of  characteristic  scenes 
that  have  passed  along  this  thoroughfare  during 
the  more  than  two  centuries  of  its  existence,  could 
be  presented  to  the  eye  in  a  shifting  panorama,  it 
would  be  an  exceedingly  effective  method  of  illus- 
trating the  march  of  time.  Acting  on  this  idea,  I 
have  contrived  a  certain  pictorial  exhibition, 
somewhat  in  the  nature  of  a  puppet-show,  by 
means  of  which  I  propose  to  call  up  the  multiform 
and  many-colored  Past  before  the  spectator,  and 
show  him  the  ghosts  of  his  forefathers,  amid  a 
succession  of  historic  incidents,  with  no  greater 
trouble  than  the  turning  of  a  crank.  $  Be  pleased, 
therefore,  my  indulgent  patrons,  to  walk  into  the 
show-room  and  take  your  seats  before  yonder 
mysterious  curtain.  The  little  wheels  and  springs 
of  my  machinery  have  been  well  oiled ;  a  multi- 


1:5 


MAIN-  8  TRE  E  T 


tude  of  puppets  are  dressed  in  character,  repre- 
senting all  varieties  of  fashion,  from  the  Puritan 
cloak  and  jerkin  to  the  latest  Oak  Hall  coat;  the 
lamps  are  trimmed,  and  shall  brighten  into  noon- 
tide sunshine,  or  fade  away  in  moonlight,  or  muf- 
fle their  brilliancy  in  a  November  cloud,  as  the 
nature  of  the  scene  may  require ;  and,  in  short, 
the  exhibition  is  just  ready  to  commence.  Un- 
less something  should  go  wrong, — as,  for  instance, 
the  misplacing  of  a  picture,  whereby  the  people 
and  events  of  one  century  might  be  thrust  into 
the  middle  of  another ;  or  the  breaking  of  a  wire, 
which  would  bring  the  course  of  time  to  a  sud- 
den period, — barring,  I  say,  the  casualties  to 
which  such  a  complicated  piece  of  mechanism  is 
liable,  I  flatter  myself,  ladies  and  gentlemen, 
that  the  performance  will  elicit  your  generous 
approbation. 

Ting-a-ting-ting !  goes  the  bell ;  the  curtain 
rises;  and  we  behold — not,  indeed,  the  Main- 
street — but  the  tract  of  leaf-strewn  forest-land, 
over  which  its  dusty  pavement  is  hereafter  to  ex- 
tend. 

You  perceive,  at  a  glance,  that  this  is  the  an- 
cient and  primitive  wood, — the  ever-youthful  and 
venerably  old,  —  verdant  with  new  twigs,  yet 
hoary,  as  it  were,  with  the  snow-fall  of  innumer- 
able years,  that  have  accumulated  upon  its  inter- 
mingled branches.  $  The  white  man's  axe  has 

14 


MA  IN-  STREET 


never  smitten  a  single  tree ;  his  footstep  has  never 
crumpled  a  single  one  of  the  withered  leaves, 
which  all  the  autumns  since  the  flood  have  been 
harvesting  beneath.  $  Yet,  see!  along  through  the 
vista  of  impending  boughs,  there  is  already  a 
faintly-traced  path,  running  nearly  east  and  west, 
as  if  a  prophecy  or  foreboding  of  the  future  street 
had  stolen  into  the  heart  of  the  solemn  old  wood. 
Onward  goes  this  hardly  perceptible  track,  now 
ascending  over  a  natural  swell  of  land,  now  sub- 
siding gently  into  a  hollow ;  traversed  here  by  a 
little  streamlet,  which  glitters  like  a  snake 
through  the  gleam  of  sunshine,  and  quickly  hides 
itself  among  the  underbrush,  in  its  quest  for  the 
neighboring  cove;  and  impeded  there  by  the 
massy  corpse  of  a  giant  of  the  forest,  which  had 
lived  out  its  incalculable  term  of  life,  and  been 
overthrown  by  mere  old  age,  and  lies  buried  in 
the  new  vegetation  that  is  born  of  its  decay. 
What  footsteps  can  have  worn  this  half-seen 
path?  $  Hark!  Do  we  not  hear  them  now  rus- 
tling softly  over  the  leaves?  We  discern  an 
Indian  woman — a  majestic  and  queenly  woman, 
or  else  her  spectral  image  does  not  represent  her 
truly — for  this  is  the  great  Squaw  Sachem,  whose 
rule,  with  that  of  her  sons,  extends  from  Mystic 
to  Agawam.  That  red  chief,  who  stalks  by  her 
side,  is  Wappacowet,  her  second  husband,  the 
priest  and  magician,  whose  incantations  shall 

15 


MAIN-  8  TREE  T 


hereafter  affright  the  pale-faced  settlers  with 
grisly  phantoms,  dancing  and  shrieking  in  the 
woods,  at  midnight.  But  greater  would  be  the 
affright  of  the  Indian  necromancer,  if,  mirrored 
in  the  pool  of  water  at  his  feet,  he  could  catch 
a  prophetic  glimpse  of  the  noon-day  marvels 
which  the  white  man  is  destined  to  achieve  ?  if  he 
could  see,  as  in  a  dream,  the  stone-front  of  the 
stately  hall,  which  will  cast  its  shadow  over  this 
very  spot;  if  he  could  be  aware  that  the  future 
edifice  will  contain  a  noble  Museum,  where, 
among  countless  curiosities  of  earth  and  sea,  a 
few  Indian  arrow-heads  shall  be  treasured  up  as 
memorials  of  a  vanished  race  ! 

No  such  forebodings  disturb  the  Squaw  Sachem 
and  Wappacowet.^  They  pass  on,  beneath  the 
tangled  shade,  holding  high  talk  on  matters  of 
state  and  religion,  and  imagine,  doubtless,  that 
their  own  system  of  affairs  will  endure  for  ever. 
Meanwhile,  how  full  of  its  own  proper  life  is  the 
scene  that  lies  around  them!  The  gray  squirrel 
runs  up  the  trees,  and  rustles  among  the  upper 
branches.  $  Was  not  that  the  leap  of  a  deer? 
And  there  is  the  whirr  of  a  partridge  !  Methinks, 
too,  I  catch  the  cruel  and  stealthy  eye  of  a  wolf, 
as  he  draws  back  into  yonder  impervious  density 
of  underbrush.  So,  there,  amid  the  murmur  of 
boughs,  go  the  Indian  queen  and  the  Indian 
priest ;  while  the  gloom  of  the  broad  wilderness 

16 


MA  IN-  STREET 


impends  over  them,  and  its  sombre  mystery  in- 
vests them  as  with  something  preternatural ;  and 
only  momentary  streaks  of  quivering  sunlight, 
once  in  a  great  while,  find  their  way  down,  and 
glimmer  among  the  feathers  in  their  dusky  hair. 

fCan  it  be  that  the  thronged  street  of  a  city  will 
ever  pass  into  this  twilight  solitude, — over  those 
soft  heaps  of  the  decaying  tree  trunks, —  and 
through  the  swampy  places,  green  with  water- 
moss, — and  penetrate  that  hopeless  entanglement 
of  great  trees,  which  have  been  uprooted  and 
tossed  together  by  a  whirlwind !  It  has  been  a 
wilderness  from  the  creation.  Must  it  not  be  a 
wilderness  for  everj^ 

Here  an  acidulous-looking  gentleman  in  blue 
glasses,  with  bows  of  Berlin  steel,  who  has  taken 
a  seat  at  the  extremity  of  the  front  row,  begins, 
at  this  early  stage  of  the  exhibition,  to  criticise. 

r  a.  The  whole  affair  is  a  manifest  catch-penny," 
observes  he,  scarcely  under  his  breath.  "  The 
trees  look  more  like  weeds  in  a  garden  than  a 
primitive  forest;  the  Squaw  Sachem  and  Wap- 
pacowet  are  stiff  in  their  pasteboard  joints;  and 
the  squirrels,  the  deer,  and  the  wolf,  move  with 
all  the  grace  of  a  child's  wooden  monkey,  sliding 
up  and  down  a  stick. 'jy 

"I  am  obliged  to  you,  sir,  for  the  candor  of 
your  remarks,"  replies  the  showman,  with  a  bow. 
"  Perhaps  they  are  just.  Human  art  has  its 

17 


MAIN-STREET 


limits,  and  we  must  now  and  then  ask  a  little  aid 
from  the  spectator's  imagination." 

"  You  will  get  no  such  aid  from  mine,"  re- 
sponds the  critic.  "  I  make  it  a  point  to  see 
things  precisely  as  they  are.  But  come !  go 
ahead! — the  stage  is  waiting!  " 

The  showman  proceeds. 

Casting  our  eyes  again  over  the  scene,  we 
perceive  that  strangers  have  found  their  way  into 
the  solitary  place.  $  In  more  than  one  spot,  among 
the  trees,  an  upheaved  axe  is  glittering  in  the 
sunshine. <$ Roger  Conant,  the  first  settler  in 
Naumkeag,  has  built  his  dwelling,  months  ago, 
on  the  border  of  the  forest-path;  and  at  this 
moment  he  comes  eastward  through  the  vista  of 
woods,  with  his  gun  over  his  shoulder,  bringing 
home  the  choice  portions  of  a  deer.  His  stalwart 
figure,  clad  in  a  leathern  jerkin  and  breeches  of 
the  same,  strides  sturdily  onward,  with  such  an 
air  of  physical  force  and  energy,  that  we  might 
almost  expect  the  very  trees  to  stand  aside,  and 
give  him  room  to  pass.  And  so,  indeed,  they 
must ;  for,  humble  as  is  his  name  in  history, 
Roger  Conant  still  is  of  that  class  of  men  who 
do  not  merely  find,  but  make,  their  place  in  the 
system  of  human  affairs :  a  man  of  thoughtful 
strength,  he  has  planted  the  germ  of  a  city. 
There  stands  his  habitation,  showing  in  its  rough 
architecture  some  features  of  the  Indian  wig- 

18 


MA  IN-  S  T  RE  E  T 


warn,  and  some  of  the  log-cabin,  and  somewhat, 
too,  of  the  straw-thatched  cottage  in  Old  Eng- 
land, where  this  good  yeoman  had  his  birth  and 
breeding.  The  dwelling  is  surrounded  by  a 
cleared  space  of  a  few  acres,  where  Indian  corn 
growrs  thrivingly  among  the  stumps  of  the  trees ; 
while  the  dark  forest  hems  it  in,  and  seems  to 
gaze  silently  and  solemnly,  as  if  wondering  at  the 
breadth  of  sunshine  which  the  white  man  spreads 
around  him.  ^  An  Indian,  half-hidden  in  the  dusky 
shade,  is  gazing  and  wondering  too. 

Within  the  door  of  the  cottage,  you  discern  the 
wife,  with  her  ruddy  English  cheek.  She  is  sing- 
ing, doubtless,  a  psalm-tune,  at  her  household 
work ;  or  perhaps  she  sighs  at  the  remembrance 
of  the  cheerful  gossip,  and  all  the  merry  social 
life,  of  her  native  village  beyond  the  vast  and 
melancholy  sea.  Yet  the  next  moment  she 
laughs,  with  sympathetic  glee,  at  the  sports  of 
her  little  tribe  of  children,  and  soon  turns  round, 
with  the  home-look  in  her  face,  as  her  husband's 
foot  is  heard  approaching  the  rough-hewn  thresh- 
old. <|fHow  sweet  must  it  be  for  those  who  have 
an  Eden  in  their  hearts,  like  Roger  Conant  and 
his  wife,  to  find  a  new  world  to  project  it  into,  as 
they  have  ;  instead  of  dwelling  among  old  haunts 
of  men,  where  so  many  household  fires  have  been 
kindled  and  burnt  out,  that  the  very  glow  of  hap- 
piness has  something  dreary  in  it .L  Not  that  this 

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MAIN-STREET 


pair  are  alone  in  their  wild  Eden  ;  for  here  comes 
Goodwife  Massey,  the  young  spouse  of  Jeffrey 
Massey,  from  her  home  hard  by,  with  an  infant  at 
her  breast.  Dame  Conant  has  another  of  like 
age;  and  it  shall  hereafter  be  one  of  the  disputed 
points  of  history,  which  of  these  two  babies  was 
the  first  town-born  child. 

But  see !  Roger  Conant  has  other  neighbors 
within  view.  Peter  Palfrey  likewise  has  built 
himself  a  house,  and  so  has  Balch  and  Norman 
and  Woodbury.  Their  dwellings,  indeed, — such 
is  the  ingenious  contrivance  of  this  piece  of 
pictorial  mechanism, — seem  to  have  arisen,  at 
various  points  of  the  scene,  even  while  we  have 
been  looking  at  it.<|>The  forest-track,  trodden 
more  and  more  by  the  hob-nailed  shoes  of  these 
sturdy  and  ponderous  Englishmen,  has  now  a  dis- 
tinctness which  it  never  could  have  acquired  from 
the  light  tread  of  a  hundred  times  as  many  Indian 
moccasins.  It  will  be  a  street,  anon.  <|>  As  we  ob- 
serve it  now,  it  goes  onwrard  from  one  clearing 
to  another,  here  plunging  into  a  shadowy  strip  of 
woods,  there  open  to  the  sunshine,  but  every- 
where showing  a  decided  line,  along  which 
human  interests  have  begun  to  hold  their  career. 
Over  yonder  swampy  spot,  two  trees  have  been 
felled  and  laid  side  by  side,  to  make  a  causeway. 
In  another  place,  the  axe  has  cleared  away  a  con- 
fused intricacy  of  fallen  trees  and  clustered 


MAIN -STREET 


houghs,  which  had  heen  tossed  together  by  a 
hurricane.  $  So,  now,  the  little  children,  just  be- 
ginning to  run  alone,  may  trip  along  the  path, 
and  not  often  stumble  over  an  impediment,  unless 
they  stray  from  it  to  gather  wood-berries  beneath 
the  trees.  And,  besides  the  feet  of  grown  people 
and  children,  there  are  cloven  hoofs  of  a  small 
herd  of  cows,  who  seek  their  subsistence  from 
the  native  grasses,  and  help  to  deepen  the  track 
of  the  future  thoroughfare.  Goats  also  browse 
along  it,  and  nibble  at  the  twigs  that  thrust  them- 
selves across  the  way.  $  Not  seldom,  in  its  more 
secluded  portions,  where  the  black  shadow  of  the 
forest  strives  to  hide  the  trace  of  human  foot- 
steps, stalks  a  gaunt  wolf,  on  the  watch  for  a  kid 
or  young  calf;  or  fixes  his  hungry  gaze  on  the 
group  of  children  gathering  berries,  and  can 
hardly  forbear  to  rush  upon  them.  ^  And  the 
Indians,  coming  from  their  distant  wigwams  to 
view  the  white  man's  settlement,  marvel  at  the 
deep  track  which  he  makes,  and  perhaps  are  sad- 
dened by  a  flitting  presentiment,  that  this  heavy 
tread  will  find  its  way  over  all  the  land ;  and  that 
the  wild  woods,  the  wild  wolf,  and  the  wild  In- 
dian, will  alike  be  trampled  beneath  it.  Even  so 
shall  it  be.  The  pavements  of  the  Main-street 
must  be  laid  over  the  red  man's  grave.  %> 

Behold!  here  is  a  spectacle  which  should  be 
ushered  in  by  the  peal  of  trumpets,  if  Naumkeag 

21 


MAIN-  8  TREE  T 


had  ever  yet  heard  that  cheery  music,  and  by  the 
roar  of  cannon,  echoing  among  the  woods.  A 
procession — for,  by  its  dignity,  as  marking  an 
epoch  in  the  history  of  the  street,  it  deserves  that 
name, — a  procession  advances  along  the  pathway. 
The  good  ship  Abigail  has  arrived  from  England, 
bringing  wares  and  merchandise,  for  the  comfort 
of  the  inhabitants,  and  traffic  with  the  Indians ; 
bringing  passengers  too,  and,  more  important 
than  all,  a  Governor  for  the  new  settlement. 
Roger  Conant  and  Peter  Palfrey,  with  their  com- 
panions, have  been  to  the  shore  to  welcome  him ; 
and  now,  with  such  honor  and  triumph  as  their 
rude  way  of  life  permits,  are  escorting  the  sea- 
flushed  voyagers  to  their  habitations,  dp)  At  the 
point  where  Endicott  enters  upon  the  scene,  two 
venerable  trees  unite  their  branches  high  above 
his  head ;  thus  forming  a  triumphal  arch  of  living 
verdure,  beneath  which  he  pauses,  with  his  wife 
leaning  on  his  arm,  to  catch  the  first  impression 
of  their  new-found  home.  The  old  settlers  gaze 
not  less  earnestly  at  him,  than  he  at  the  hoary 
woods  and  the  rough  surface  of  the  clearings. 
They  like  his  bearded  face,  under  the  shadow  of 
the  broad-brimmed  and  steeple-crowned  Puritan 
hat; — a  visage,  resolute,  grave,  and  thoughtful, 
yet  apt  to  kindle  with  that  glow  of  a  cheerful 
spirit,  by  which  men  of  strong  character  are  en- 
abled to  go  joyfully  on  their  proper  tasks.  His 


MAIN-  STREET 


form,  too,  as  you  see  it,  in  a  doublet  and  hose  of 
sad-colored  cloth,  is  of  a  manly  make,  fit  for  toil 
and  hardship,  and  fit  to  wield  the  heavy  sword 
that  hangs  from  his  leathern  belt.  His  aspect  is 
a  better  warrant  for  the  ruler's  office,  than  the 
parchment  commission  which  he  bears,  however 
fortified  it  may  be  with  the  broad  seal  of  the 
London  council.  Peter  Palfrey  nods  to  Roger 
Conant.  "  The  worshipful  Court  of  Assistants 
have  done  wisely,"  say  they  between  themselves. 
"  They  have  chosen  for  our  governor  a  man  out 
of  a  thousand."  Then  they  toss  up  their  hats, — 
they,  and  all  the  uncouth  figures  of  their  com- 
pany, most  of  whom  are  clad  in  skins,  inasmuch 
as  their  old  kersey  and  linsey-woolsey  garments 
have  been  torn  and  tattered  by  many  a  long 
month's  wear, — they  all  toss  up  their  hats,  and 
salute  their  new  governor  and  captain  with  a 
hearty  English  shout  of  welcome.  We  seem  to 
hear  it  with  our  own  ears;  so  perfectly  is  the 
action  represented  in  this  life-like,  this  almost 
magic  picture ! 

Bat  have  you  observed  the  lady  who  leans 
upon  the  arm  of  Endicott? — a  rose  of  beauty 
from  an  English  garden,  now  to  be  transplanted 
to  a  fresher  soil.  It  may  be,  that,  long  years — 
centuries  indeed — after  this  fair  flower  shall  have 
decayed,  other  flowers  of  the  same  race  will 
appear  in  the  same  soil,  and  gladden  other  gen- 

23 


MA  IN-  STREET 


erations  with  hereditary  beauty.  Does  not  the 
vision  haunt  us  yet?  Has  not  Nature  kept  the 
mould  unbroken,  deeming  it  a  pity  that  the  idea 
should  vanish  from  mortal  sight  for  ever,  after 
only  once  assuming  earthly  substance?  Do  we 
not  recognize,  in  that  fair  woman's  face,  the 
model  of  features  which  still  beam,  at  happy 
moments,  on  what  was  then  the  woodland  path- 
way, but  has  long  since  grown  into  a  busy  street? 

"This  is  too  ridiculous! — positively  insuffer- 
able ! "  mutters  the  same  critic  who  had  before 
expressed  his  disapprobation.  "  Here  is  a  paste- 
board figure,  such  as  a  child  would  cut  out  of  a 
card,  with  a  pair  of  very  dull  scissors ;  and  the 
fellow  modestly  requests  us  to  see  in  it  the 
prototype  of  hereditary  beauty !  " 

"But,  sir,  you  have  not  the  proper  point  of 
view,"  remarks  the  showman.  "  You  sit  alto- 
gether too  near  to  get  the  best  effect  of  my 
pictorial  exhibition.  Pray,  oblige  me  by  remov- 
ing to  this  other  bench ;  and,  I  venture  to  assure 
you,  the  proper  light  and  shadow  will  transform 
the  spectacle  into  quite  another  thing." 

"Pshaw!"  replies  the  critic:  "I  want  no  other 
light  and  shade.  I  have  already  told  you,  that  it 
is  my  business  to  see  things  just  as  they  are." 

"  I  would  suggest  to  the  author  of  this  ingeni- 
ous exhibition,"  observes  a  gentlemanly  person, 
who  has  shown  signs  of  being  much  interested, 

24 


MAIN-  STREET 


— "I  would  suggest  that  Anna  Gower,  the  first 
wife  of  Governor  Endicott,  and  who  came  with 
him  from  England,  left  no  posterity;  and  that, 
consequently,  we  cannot  be  indebted  to  that  hon- 
orable lady  for  any  specimens  of  feminine  loveli- 
ness, now  extant  among  us." 

Having  nothing  to  allege  against  this  genealog- 
ical objection,  the  showman  points  again  to  the 
scene. 

During  this  little  interruption,  you  perceive 
that  the  Anglo-Saxon  energy — as  the  phrase  now 
goes — has  been  at  work  in  the  spectacle  before 
us.^So  many  chimneys  now  send  up  their  smoke, 
that  it  begins  to  have  the  aspect  of  a  village 
street ;  although  every  thing  is  so  inartificial  and 
inceptive,  that  it  seems  as  if  one  returning  Wave 
of  the  wild  nature  might  overwhelm  it  all.  jfifut  #: 
the  one  edifice,  which  gives  the  pledge  of  perma-  ID/ 
nence  to  this  bold  enterprise,  is  seen  at  the  cen-  *- 
tral  point  of  the  picture.  There  stands  the  meet- 
ing-house, a  small  structure,  low-roofed,  without 
a  spire,  and  built  of  rough  timber,  newly  hewn, 
with  the  sap  still  in  the  logs,  and  here  aaad  there 
a  strip  of  bark  adhering  to  them.  /A  meaner 
temple  was  never  consecrated  to  the  worship  of 
the  Deity.  With  the  alternative  of  kneeling 
beneath  the  awful  vault  of  the  firmament,  it  is 
strange  that  men  should  creep  into  this  pent-up 
nook,  and  expect  God's  presence  there.  Such, 

25 


MAIN-  S  TREE  T 


at  least,  one  would  imagine,  might  be  the  feeling 
of  these  forest-settlers,  accustomed,  as  they  had 
been,  to  stand  under  the  dim  arches  of  vast 
cathedrals,  and  to  offer  up  their  hereditary  wor- 
ship in  the  old,  ivy-covered  churches  of  rural 
England,  around  which  lay  the  bones  of  many 
r  rift  generations  of  their  forefathers.  How  could 

they  dispense  with  the  carved  altar-work? — how, 
with  the  pictured  windows,  where  the  light  of 
l^lftyl  common  day  was  hallowed  by  being  transmitted 
through  the  glorified  figures  of  saints? — how, 
with  the  lofty  roof,  imbued,  as  it  must  have  been, 
with  the  prayers  that  had  gone  upward  for  cen- 
turies?— how,  with  the  rich  peal  of  the  solemn 
organ,  rolling  along  the  aisles,  pervading  the 
whole  church,  and  sweeping  the  soul  away  on  a 
flood  of  audible  religion?  They  needed  nothing 
of  all  this.  Their  house  of  worship,  like  their 
ceremonial,  was  naked,  simple,  and  severe.  But 
the  zeal  of  a  recovered  faith  burned  like  a  lamp 
within  their  hearts,  enriching  everything  around 
them  with  its  radiance;  making  of  these  new 
walls,  and  this  narrow  compass,  its  own  cathe- 
dral; and  being,  in  itself,  that  spiritual  mystery 
and  experience,  of  which  sacred  architecture, 
pictured  windows,  and  the  organ's  grand  solem- 
nity, are  remote  and  imperfect  symbols.  All  was 
well,  so  long  as  their  lamps  were  freshly  kindled 
at  the  heavenly  flame.  After  a  while,  however, 


MAIN-STREET 


whether  in  their  time  or  their  children's,  these 
lamps  began  to  burn  more  dimly,  or  with  a  less 
genuine  lustre ;  and  then  it  might  be  seen,  how 
hard,  cold,  and  confined,  was  their  system, — how 
like  an  iron  cage  was  that  which  they  called 
Libert^]] 

Too  much  of  this.  $  Look  again  at  the  picture, 
and  observe  how  the  aforesaid  Anglo-Saxon 
energy  is  nowr  trampling  along  the  street,  and 
raising  a  positive  cloud  of  dust  beneath  its  sturdy 
footsteps.  For  there  the  carpenters  are  building 
a  new  house,  the  frame  of  which  was  hewn  and 
fitted  in  England,  of  English  oak,  and  sent  hither 
on  shipboard ;  and  here  a  blacksmith  makes  huge 
clang  and  clatter  on  his  anvil,  shaping  out  tools 
and  weapons ;  and  yonder  a  wheelwright,  who 
boasts  himself  a  London  workman,  regularly  bred 
to  his  handicraft,  is  fashioning  a  set  of  wagon- 
wheels,  the  track  of  which  shall  soon  be  visible. 
The  wild  forest  is  shrinking  back ;  the  street  has 
lost  the  aromatic  odor  of  the  pine-trees,  and  of 
the  sweet  fern  that  grew  beneath  them.  $  The 
tender  and  modest  wild-flowers,  those  gentle 
children  of  savage  nature  that  grew  pale  beneath 
the  ever-brooding  shade,  have  shrunk  away  and 
disappeared,  like  stars  that  vanish  in  the  breadth 
of  light.  (^Gardens  are  fenced  in,  and  display 
pumpkin-beds  and  rows  of  cabbages  and  beans ; 
and,  though  the  governor  and  the  minister  both 

27 


MAIN-  8  TREE  T 


view  them  with  a  disapproving  eye,  plants  of 
broad-leaved  'tobacco,  which  the  cultivators  are 
enjoined  to  use  1  privily,  or  not  at  all.  No  wolf, 
for  a  year  past,  has  been  heard  to  bark,  or  known 
to  range  among  the  dwellings,  except  that  single 
one  whose  grisly  head,  with  a  plash  of  blood 
beneath  it,  is  now  affixed  to  the  portal  of  the 
meeting-house.  $  The  partridge  has  ceased  to 
run  across  the  too-frequented  path.  Of  all  the 
wild  life  that  used  to  throng  here,  only  the 
Indians  still  come  into  the  settlement,  bringing 
the  skins  of  beaver  and  otter,  bear  and  elk, 
which  they  sell  to  Endicott  for  the  wares  of  Eng- 
land. And  there  is  little  John  Massey,  the  son  of 
Jeffrey  Massey  and  first-born  of  Naumkeag,  play- 
ing beside  his  father's  threshold,  a  child  of  six  or 
seven  years  old.  Which  is  the  better-grown 
infant, — the  town  or  the  boy"? 

The  red  men  have  become  aware,  that  the 
street  is  no  longer  free  to  them,  save  by  the 
sufferance  and  permission  of  the  settlers.  <f>  Often, 
to  impress  them  with  an  awe  of  English  power, 
there  is  a  muster  and  training  of  the  town-forces, 
and  a  stately  march  of  the  mail-clad  band,  like 
this  which  we  now  see  advancing  up  the  street. 
There  they  come,  fifty  of  them,  or  more ;  all  with 
their  iron  breastplates  and  steelcaps  well  bur- 
nished, and  glimmering  bravely  against  the  sun ; 
their  ponderous  muskets  on  their  shoulders,  their 


MAIN-  S  TREE  T 


bandaliers  about  their  waists,  their  lighted  matches 
in  their  hands,  and  the  drum  and  fife  playing 
cheerily  before  them.  See  !  do  they  not  step  like 
martial  men  ?  Do  they  not  mano3uvre  like  sol- 
diers who  have  seen  stricken  fields?  And  well 
they  may ;  for  this  band  is  composed  of  precisely 
such  materials  as  those  with  which  Cromwell  is 
preparing  to  beat  down  the  strength  of  a  king- 
dom ;  and  his  famous  regiment  of  Ironsides  might 
be  recruited  from  just  such  men.^/fn  every  thing, 
at  this  period,  New  England  was  the  essential 
spirit  and  flower  of  that  which  was  about  to  be- 
come  uppermost  in  the  mother-country.  Many  a 
bold  and  wise  man  lost  the  fame  which  would 
have  accrued  to  him  in  English  history,  by  cross- 
ing the  Atlantic  with  our  forefathers.)  Many  a 
valiant  captain,  wrho  might  have  been  foremost  at 
Marston  Moor  or  Naseby,  exhausted  his  martial 
ardor  in  the  command  of  a  log-built  fortress,  like 
that  which  you  observe  on  the  gently  rising 
ground  at  the  right  of  the  pathway, — its  banner 
fluttering  in  the  breeze,  and  the  culverins  and 
and  sakers  showing  their  deadly  muzzles  over  the 
rampart.  $ 

A  multitude  of  people  were  now  thronging  to 
New  England ;  some,  because  the  ancient  and 
ponderous  frame-work  of  Church  and  State  threat- 
ened to  crumble  down  upon  their  heads ;  others, 
because  they  despaired  of  such  a  downfall. 

29 


MA  IN-  S  TREE  T 


Among  those  who  came  to  Naumkeag  were  men 
of  history  and  legend,  whose  feet  leave  a  track 
of  brightness  along  any  pathway  which  they  have 
trodden.  $  You  shall  behold  their  life-like  images, 
— their  spectres,  if  you  choose  so  to  call  them, — 
passing,  encountering  with  a  familiar  nod,  stop- 
ping to  converse  together,  praying,  bearing  weap- 
ons, laboring  or  resting  from  their  labors,  in  the 
Main-street.  Here,  now,  comes  Hugh  Peters,  an 
earnest,  restless  man,  walking  swiftly,  as  being 
impelled  by  that  fiery  activity  of  nature  which 
shall  hereafter  thrust  him  into  the  conflict  of 
dangerous  affairs,  make  him  the  chaplain  and 
counsellor  of  Cromwell,  and  finally  bring  him  to 
a  bloody  end.  He  pauses,  by  the  meeting-house, 
to  exchange  a  greeting  with  Roger  Williams, 
whose  face  indicates,  methinks,  a  gentler  spirit, 
kinder  and  more  expansive,  than  that  of  Peters ; 
yet  not  less  active  for  what  he  discerns  to  be  the 
will  of  God,  or  the  welfare  of  mankind.® And 
look !  here  is  a  guest  for  Endicott,  coming  forth 
out  of  the  forest,  through  which  he  has  been 
journeying  from  Boston,  and  which,  with  its  rude 
branches,  has  caught  hold  of  his  attire,  and  has 
wet  his  feet  with  its  swamps  and  streams.  Still 
there  is  something  in  his  mild  and  venerable, 
though  not  aged  presence, — a  propriety,  an  equi- 
librium in  Governor  Winthrop's  nature,  that 
causes  the  disarray  of  his  costume  to  be  unno- 


MA  IN-  S  TREE  T 


ticed,  and  gives  us  the  same  impression  as  if  he 
were  clad  in  such  grave  and  rich  attire  as  we  may 
suppose  him  to  have  worn  in  the  Council  Cham- 
ber of  the  colony.  Is  not  this  characteristic 
wonderfully  perceptible  in  our  spectral  repre- 
sentative of  his  person?  But  what  dignitary  is 
this  crossing  from  the  other  side  to  greet  the 
governor  ?  A  stately  personage,  in  a  dark  velvet 
cloak,  with  a  hoary  beard,  and  a  gold  chain  across 
his  breast :  he  has  the  authoritative  port  of  one 
who  has  filled  the  highest  civic  station  in  the  first 
of  cities.  <|>  Of  all  men  in  the  world,  we  should 
least  expect  to  meet  the  Lord  Mayor  of  London 
— as  Sir  Richard  Saltonstall  has  been,  once  and 
again — in  a  forest-bordered  settlement  of  the 
western  wilderness. 

Farther  down  the  street,  we  see  Emanuel 
Downing,  a  grave  and  worthy  citizen,  with  his  son 
George,  a  stripling  who  has  a  career  before  him  : 
his  shrewd  and  quick  capacity  and  pliant  con- 
science shall  not  only  exalt  him  high,  but  secure 
him  from  a  downfall.  Here  is  another  figure,  on 
whose  characteristic  make  and  expressive  action 
I  will  stake  the  credit  of  my  pictorial  puppet- 
show.  Have  you  not  already  detected  a  quaint, 
sly  humor  in  that  face, — an  eccentricity  in  the 
manner, — a  certain  indescribable  waywardness, 
— all  the  marks,  in  short,  of  an  original  man, 
unmistakeably  impressed,  yet  kept  down  by  a 

31 


MA  IN-  8  TREE  T 


sense  of  clerical  restraint?  That  is  Nathaniel 
Ward,  the  minister  of  Ipswich,  but  better  remem- 
bered as  the  simple  cobbler  of  Agawam.  He 
hammered  his  sole  so  faithfully,  and  stitched  his 
upper-leather  so  well,  that  the  shoe  is  hardly  yet 
worn  out,  though  thrown  aside  for  some  two  cen- 
turies past.  $  And  next,  among  these  Puritans  and 
Roundheads,  we  observe  the  very  model  of  a 
Cavalier,  with  the  curling  love-lock,  the  fantas- 
tically trimmed  beard,  the  embroidery,  the  orna- 
mented rapier,  the  gilded  dagger,  and  all  other 
foppishnesses  that  distinguished  the  wild  gallants 
who  rode  headlong  to  their  overthrow  in  the 
cause  of  King  Charles.  This  is  Morton  of  Merry 
Mount,  who  has  come  hither  to  hold  a  council 
with  Endicott,  but  will  shortly  be  his  prisoner. 
Yonder  pale,  decaying  figure  of  a  white-robed 
woman  who  glides  slowly  along  the  street,  is  the 
Lady  Arabella,  looking  for  her  own  grave  in  the 
virgin  soil.  That  other  female  form,  who  seems 
to  be  talking — we  might  almost  say  preaching  or 
expounding — in  the  centre  of  a  group  of  pro- 
foundly attentive  auditors,  is  Ann  Hutchinson. 

And  here  comes  Vane. 

"But,  my  dear  sir,"  interrupts  the  same  gentle- 
man who  before  questioned  the  showman's  gen- 
ealogical accuracy,  "allow  me  to  observe,  that 
these  historical  personages  could  not  possibly 
have  met  together  in  the  Main-street.  They 


MAIN-STREET 


might,  and  probably  did,  all  visit  our  old  town,  at 
one  time  or  another,  but  not  simultaneously ;  and 
you  have  fallen  into  anachronisms  that  I  pos- 
itively shudder  to  think  of!  " 

"  The  fellow,"  adds  the  scarcely  civil  critic, 
"has  learned  a  bead-roll  of  historic  names,  whom 
he  lugs  into  his  pictorial  puppet-show,  as  he  calls 
it,  helter-skelter,  without  caring  whether  they 
were  contemporaries  or  not, — and  sets  them  all 
by  the  ears  together.  But  was  there  ever  such  a 
fund  of  impudence !  To  hear  his  running  com- 
mentary, you  would  suppose  that  these  miserable 
slips  of  painted  pasteboard,  with  hardly  the 
remotest  outlines  of  the  human  figure,  had  all  the 
character  and  expression  of  Michael  Angelo's 
pictures.  Well !  — go  on,  sir  !  " 

"  Sir,  you  break  the  illusion  of  the  scene," 
mildly  remonstrates  the  showman. 

"Illusion!  What  illusion?"  rejoins  the  critic, 
with  a  contemptuous  snort.  "  On  the  word  of  a 
gentleman,  I  see  nothing  illusive  in  the  wretch- 
edly bedaubed  sheet  of  canvass  that  forms  your 
back-ground,  or  in  these  pasteboard  slips  that 
hitch  and  jerk  along  the  front.  The  only  illu- 
sion, permit  me  to  say,  is  in  the  puppet-show- 
man's tongue, — and  that  but  a  wretched  one,  into 
the  bargain ! " 

"  We  public  men,"  replies  the  showman,  meek- 
ly, "must  lay  our  account,  sometimes,  to  meet  an 

33 


MAIN-  8  TREE  T 


uncandid  severity  of  criticism.  But — merely  for 
your  own  pleasure,  sir — let  me  entreat  you  to 
take  another  point  of  view.  Sit  further  back,  by 
that  young  lady,  in  whose  face  I  have  watched 
the  reflection  of  every  changing  scene;  only 
oblige  me  by  sitting  there;  and,  take  my  word 
for  it,  the  slips  of  pasteboard  shall  assume  spirit- 
ual life,  and  the  bedaubed  canvass  become  an 
airy  and  changeable  reflex  of  what  it  purports  to 
represent." 

"I  know  better,"  retorts  the  critic,  settling 
himself  in  his  seat,  with  sullen,  but  self-com- 
placent immovableness.  "And,  as  for  my  own 
pleasure,  I  shall  best  consult  it  by  remaining 
precisely  where  I  am." 

The  showman  bows,  and  waves  his  hand ;  and, 
at  the  signal,  as  if  time  and  vicissitude  had  been 
awaiting  his  permission  to  move  onward,  the 
mimic  street  becomes  alive  again.  <f> 

Years  have  rolled  over  our  scene,  and  con- 
verted the  forest-track  into  a  dusty  thoroughfare, 
which,  being  intersected  with  lanes  and  cross- 
paths,  may  fairly  be  designated  as  the  Main-street. 
On  the  ground-sites  of  many  of  the  log-built 
sheds,  into  which  the  first  settlers  crept  for  shel- 
ter, houses  of  quaint  architecture  have  now  risen. 
These  later  edifices  are  built,  as  you  see,  in  one 
generally  accordant  style,  though  with  such  sub- 
ordinate variety  as  keeps  the  beholder's  curiosity 


MA  IN-  S  TREE  T 


excited,  and  causes  each  structure,  like  its  own- 
er's character,  to  produce  its  own  peculiar  im- 
pression. Most  of  them  have  one  huge  chimney 
in  the  centre,  with  flues  so  vast  that  it  must  have 
been  easy  for  the  witches  to  fly  out  of  them,  as 
they  were  wont  to  do,  when  bound  on  an  aerial 
visit  to  the  Black  Man  in  the  forest. ^Around  this 
great  chimney  the  wooden  house  clusters  itself, 
in  a  whole  community  of  gable-ends,  each  ascend- 
ing into  its  own  separate  peak ;  the  second  story, 
with  its  lattice-windows,  projecting  over  the  first; 
and  the  door,  which  is  perhaps  arched,  provided 
on  the  outside  with  an  iron  hammer,  wherewith 
the  visitor's  hand  may  give  a  thundering  rat-a-tat. 
The  timber  frame-work  of  these  houses,  as  com- 
pared with  those  of  recent  date,  is  like  the  skel- 
eton of  an  old  giant,  beside  the  frail  bones  of  a 
modern  man  of  fashion.  $  Many  of  them,  by  the 
vast  strength  and  soundness  of  their  oaken  sub- 
stance, have  been  preserved  through  a  length  of 
time  which  would  have  tried  the  stability  of  brick 
and  stone ;  so  that,  in  all  the  progressive  decay 
and  continual  reconstruction  of  the  street,  down 
to  our  own  days,  we  shall  still  behold  these  old 
edifices  occupying  their  long-accustomed  sites. 
For  instance,  on  the  upper  corner  of  that  green 
lane  which  shall  hereafter  be  North-street,  we  see 
the  Curwen  House,  newly  built,  with  the  carpen- 
ters still  at  work  on  the  roof,  nailing  down  the 

35 


MAIN-  S  TREE  T 


last  sheaf  of  shingles.  $  On  the  lower  corner 
stands  another  dwelling, — destined,  at  some  pe- 
riod of  its  existence,  to  be  the  abode  of  an  unsuc- 
cessful alchymist, — which  shall  likewise  survive 
to  our  own  generation,  and  perhaps  long  outlive 
it.  Thus,  through  the  medium  of  these  patriarch- 
al edifices,  we  have  now  established  a  sort  of  kin- 
dred and  hereditary  acquaintance  with  the  Main- 
street.  $ 

Great  as  is  the  transformation  produced  by  a 
short  term  of  years,  each  single  day  creeps  through 
the  Puritan  settlement  sluggishly  enough.  It 
shall  pass  before  your  eyes,  condensed  into  the 
space  of  a  few  moments.  f>  The  grey  light  of  early 
morning  is  slowly  diffusing  itself  over  the  scene ; 
and  the  bellman,  whose  office  it  is  to  cry  the  hour 
at  the  street-corners,  rings  the  last  peal  upon  his 
hand-bell,  and  goes  wearily  homewards,  with  the 
owls,  the  bats,  and  other  creatures  of  the  night. 
Lattices  are  thrust  back  on  their  hinges,  as  if  the 
town  were  opening  its  eyes,  in  the  summer  morn- 
ing. Forth  stumbles  the  still  drowsy  cow-herd, 
with  his  horn ;  putting  which  to  his  lips,  it  emits 
a  bellowing  bray,  impossible  to  be  represented  in 
the  picture,  but  which  reaches  the  pricked-up 
ears  of  every  cow  in  the  settlement,  and  tells  her 
that  the  dewy  pasture-hour  is  come.  House  after 
house  awakes,  and  sends  the  smoke  up  curling 
from  its  chimney,  like  frosty  breath  from  living 


MAIN-  STRE  E  T 


nostrils ;  and  as  those  white  wreaths  of  smoke, 
though  impregnated  with  earthy  admixtures,  climb 
skyward,  so,  from  each  dwelling,  does  the  morn- 
ing worship  —  its  spiritual  essence  bearing  up  its 
human  imperfection  —  find  its  way  to  the  heav- 
enly Father's  throne. 

The  breakfast-hour  being  past,  the  inhabitants 
do  not,  as  usual,  go  to  their  fields  or  workshops, 
but  remain  within  doors;  or  perhaps  walk  the 
street,  with  a  grave  sobriety,  yet  a  disengaged  and 
unburthened  aspect,  that  belongs  neither  to  a 
holiday  nor  a  Sabbath.  And,  indeed,  this  passing 
day  is  neither,  nor  is  it  a  common  week-day, 
although  partaking  of  all  the  three.  $  It  is  the 
Thursday  Lecture ;  an  institution  which  New 
England  has  long  ago  relinquished,  and  almost 
forgotten,  yet  which  it  would  have  been  better  to 
retain,  as  bearing  relations  to  both  the  spiritual 
and  ordinary  life,  and  bringing  each  acquainted 
with  the  other.  The  tokens  of  its  observance, 
however,  which  here  meet  our  eyes,  are  of  rath- 
er a  questionable  cast.  It  is,  in  one  sense,  a 
day  of  public  shame ;  the  day  on  which  trans- 
gressors, who  have  made  themselves  liable  to 
the  minor  severities  of  the  Puritan  law,  receive 
their  reward  of  ignominy.*^ At  this  very  moment, 
the  constable  has  bound  an  idle  fellow  to  the 
whipping-post,  and  is  giving  him  his  deserts  with 
a  cat-o'-nine-tails.  Ever  since  sunrise,  Daniel 

37 


MAIN-  S  TREE  T 


Fairfield  has  been  standing  on  the  steps  of  the 
meeting-house,  with  a  halter  about  his  neck, 
which  he  is  condemned  to  wear  visibly  through- 
out his  lifetime ;  Dorothy  Talby  is  chained  to  a 
post  at  the  corner  of  Prison  Lane,  with  the  hot 
sun  blazing  on  her  matronly  face,  and  all  for  no 
other  offence  than  lifting  her  hand  against  her 
husband;  while,  through  the  bars  of  that  great 
wooden  cage,  in  the  centre  of  the  scene,  we  dis- 
cern either  a  human  being  or  a  wild  beast,  or 
both  in  one,  whom  this  public  infamy  causes  to 
roar,  and  gnash  his  teeth,  and  shake  the  strong 
oaken  bars,  as  if  he  would  break  forth,  and  tear 
in  pieces  the  little  children  who  have  been  peep- 
ing at  him.  Such  are  the  profitable  sights  that 
serve  the  good  people  to  while  away  the  earlier 
part  of  lecture-day.  <|> Betimes  in  the  forenoon,  a 
traveller — the  first  traveller  that  has  come  hither- 
ward  this  morning  —  rides  slowly  into  the  street, 
on  his  patient  steed.  He  seems  a  clergyman ; 
and,  as  he  draws  near,  we  recognize  the  minister 
of  Lynn,  who  was  pre-engaged  to  lecture  here, 
and  has  been  revolving  his  discourse,  as  he  rode 
through  the  hoary  wilderness.  Behold,  now,  the 
whole  town  thronging  into  the  meeting-house, 
mostly  with  such  sombre  visages,  that  the  sun- 
shine becomes  little  better  than  a  shadow,  when 
it  falls  upon  them.  <§  There  go  the  Thirteen  Men, 
grim  rulers  of  a  grim  community !  There  goes 


MAIN-  STRE  E  T 


John  Massey,  the  first  town-born  child,  now  a 
youth  of  twenty,  whose  eye  wanders  with  pecul- 
iar interest  towards  that  buxom  damsel  who 
comes  up  the  steps  at  the  same  instant.  <f>  There 
hobbles  Goody  Foster,  a  sour  and  bitter  old  bel- 
dam, looking  as  if  she  went  to  curse,  and  not  to 
pray,  and  whom  many  of  her  neighbors  suspect 
of  taking  an  occasional  airing  on  a  broomstick. 
There,  too,  slinking  shamefacedly  in,  you  observe 
that  same  poor  do-nothing  and  good-for-nothing, 
whom  we  saw  castigated  just  now  at  the  whip- 
ping-post. Last  of  all,  there  goes  the  tithing- 
man,  lugging  in  a  couple  of  small  boys,  whom  he 
has  caught  at  play  beneath  God's  blessed  sun- 
shine, in  a  back  lane.  $  What  native  of  Naumkeag, 
whose  recollections  go  back  more  than  thirty 
years,  does  not  still  shudder  at  that  dark  ogre  of 
his  infancy,  who  perhaps  had  long  ceased  to  have 
an  actual  existence,  but  still  lived  in  his  childish 
belief,  in  a  horrible  idea,  and  in  the  nurse's 
threat,  as  the  Tidy  Man  ! 

It  will  be  hardly  worth  our  while  to  wait  two, 
or  it  may  be  three,  turnings  of  the  hour-glass,  for 
the  conclusion  of  the  lecture.  Therefore,  by  my 
control  over  light  and  darkness,  I  cause  the  dusk, 
and  then  the  starless  night,  to  brood  over  the 
street ;  and  summon  forth  again  the  bellman,  with 
his  lantern  casting  a  gleam  about  his  footsteps,  to 
pace  wearily  from  corner  to  corner,  and  shout 


MAIN-  STREET 


^drowsily  the  hour  to  drowsy  or  dreaming  ears. 

I  Happy  are  we,  if  for  nothing  else,  yet  because 
we  did  not  live  in  those  days^In  truth,  when  the 
first  novelty  and  stir  of  spirit  had  subsided, — 
when  the  new  settlement,  between  the  forest- 
border  and  the  sea,  had  become  actually  a  little 
town,  —  its  daily  life  must  have  trudged  onward 
with  hardly  any  thing  to  diversify  and  enliven  it, 
while  also  its  rigidity  could  not  fail  to  cause  mis- 
erable distortions  of  the  moral  nature.  Such  a 
life  was  sinister  to  the  intellect,  and  sinister  to 
the  heart;  especially  when  one  generation  had 
bequeathed  its  religious  gloom,  and  the  counter- 
feit of  its  religious  ardor,  to  the  next :  for  these 
characteristics,  as  was  inevitable,  assumed  the 
form  both  of  hypocrisy  and  exaggeration,  by 
being  inherited  from  the  example  and  precept  of 
other  human  beings,  and  not  from  an  original  and 
spiritual  source.  $fThe  sons  and  grandchildren  of 
the  first  settlers  were  a  race  of  lower  and  nar- 
rower souls  than  their  progenitors  had  been.  The 
latter  were  stern,  severe,  intolerant,  but  not  su- 
perstitious, not  even  fanatical;  and  endowed,  if 
any  men  of  that  age  were,  with  a  far-seeing 
worldly  sagacity.  But  it  was  impossible  for  the 
succeeding  race  to  grow  up,  in  Heaven's  freedom, 
beneath  the  discipline  which  their  gloomy  energy 
of  character  had  established  ;  nor,  it  may  be,  have 
we  even  yet  thrown  off  all  the  unfavorable  influ- 


MAIN-  S  TREE  T 


ences  which,  among  many  good  ones,  were  be- 
queathed to  us  by  our  Puritan  forefathers.  Let 
us  thank  God  for  having  given  us  such  ancestors ; 
and  let  each  successive  generation  thank  him,  not 
less  fervently,  for  being  one  step  further  from 
them  in  the  march  of  agesj 

"  What  is  all  this  ? "  cries  the  critic.  "  A  ser- 
mon ?  If  so,  it  is  not  in  the  bill." 

"  Very  true,"  replies  the  showman ;  "  and  1  ask 
pardon  of  the  audience." 

Look  now  at  the  street,  and  observe  a  strange 
people  entering  it.  $  Their  garments  are  torn  and 
disordered,  their  faces  haggard,  their  figures 
emaciated ;  for  they  have  made  their  way  hither 
through  pathless  deserts,  suffering  hunger  and 
hardship,  with  no  other  shelter  than  a  hollow 
tree,  the  lair  of  a  wild  beast,  or  an  Indian  wig- 
wam. Nor,  in  the  most  inhospitable  and  danger- 
ous of  such  lodging-places,  was  there  half  the 
peril  that  awaits  them  in  this  thoroughfare  of 
Christian  men,  with  those  secure  dwellings  and 
warm  hearths  on  either  side  of  it,  and  yonder 
meeting-house  as  the  central  object  of  the  scene. 

These  wanderers  have  received  from  Heaven 
a  gift  that,  in  all  epochs  of  the  world,  has 
brought  with  it  the  penalties  of  mortal  suffering 
and  persecution,  scorn,  enmity,  and  death  itself; 
—  a  gift  that,  thus  terrible  to  its  possessors,  has 
ever  been  most  hateful  to  all  other  men,  since  its 

41 


MAIN-  S  TREE  T 


very  existence  seems  to  threaten  the  overthrow 
of  whatever  else  the  toilsome  ages  have  built  up  ; 
—  the  gift  of  a  new  idea.  You  can  discern  it  in 
them,  illuminating  their  faces  —  their  whole  per- 
sons, indeed,  however  earthly  and  cloddish  —  with 
a  light  that  inevitably  shines  through,  and  makes 
the  startled  community  aware  that  these  men  are 
not  as  they  themselves  are;  not  brethren  nor 
neighbors  of  their  thought.  <|>  Forthwith,  it  is  as  if 
an  earthquake  rumbled  through  the  town,  making 
its  vibrations  felt  at  every  hearthstone,  and  espe- 
cially causing  the  spire  of  the  meeting-house  to 
totter.  The  Quakers  have  come !  We  are  in 
peril !  See  !  they  trample  upon  our  wise  and  well- 
established  laws  in  the  person  of  our  chief  mag- 
istrate ;  for  Governor  Endicott  is  passing,  now  an 
aged  man,  and  dignified  with  long  habits  of  au- 
thority,—  and  not  one  of  the  irreverent  vagabonds 
has  moved  his  hat !  Did  you  note  the  ominous 
frown  of  the  white-bearded  Puritan  governor,  as 
he  turned  himself  about,  and,  in  his  anger,  half 
uplifted  the  staff  that  has  become  a  needful  sup- 
port to  his  old  age  ?  Here  comes  old  Mr.  Norris, 
our  venerable  minister.  $  Will  they  doff  their  hats, 
and  pay  reverence  to  him?  No  :  their  hats  stick 
fast  to  their  ungracious  heads,  as  if  they  grew 
there;  and  —  impious  varlets  that  they  are,  and 
worse  than  the  heathen  Indians!  —  they  eye  our 
reverend  pastor  with  a  peculiar  scorn,  distrust, 

42 


MAIN-  STREET 


unbelief,  and  utter  denial  of  his  sanctified  preten- 
sions, of  which  he  himself  immediately  becomes 
conscious;  the  more  bitterly  conscious,  as  he  nev- 
er knew  nor  dreamed  of  the  like  before. 

But  look  yonder !  Can  we  believe  our  eyes  ? 
A  Quaker  woman,  clad  in  sackcloth,  and  with 
ashes  on  her  head,  has  mounted  the  steps  of  the 
meeting-house.  She  addresses  the  people  in  a 
wild,  shrill  voice,  —  wild  and  shrill  it  must  be,  to 
suit  such  a  figure,  —  which  makes  them  tremble 
and  turn  pale,  although  they  crowd  open-mouthed 
to  hear  her.  She  is  bold  against  established  au- 
thority ;  she  denounces  the  priest  and  his  steeple- 
house. <^Many  of  her  hearers  are  appalled;  some 
weep ;  and  others  listen  with  a  rapt  attention,  as 
if  a  living  truth  had  now,  for  the  first  time,  forced 
its  way  through  the  crust  of  habit,  reached  their 
hearts,  and  awakened  them  to  life.  $  This  matter 
must  be  looked  to ;  else  we  have  brought  our  faith 
across  the  seas  with  us  in  vain ;  and  it  had  been 
better  that  the  old  forest  were  still  standing  here, 
waving  its  tangled  boughs,  and  murmuring  to  the 
sky  out  of  its  desolate  recesses,  instead  of  this 
goodly  street,  if  such  blasphemies  be  spoken  in  it. 

So  thought  the  old  Puritans.  What  was  their 
mode  of  action  may  be  partly  judged  from  the 
spectacles  which  now  pass  before  your  eyes. 
Joshua  Buflfum  is  standing  in  the  pillory.  Cas- 
sandra Southwick  is  led  to  prison.  And  there  a 

43 


MAIN-  S  TREE  T 


woman,  —  it  is  Ann  Coleman,  —  naked  from  the 
waist  upward,  and  bound  to  the  tail  of  a  cart,  is 
dragged  through  the  Main-street  at  the  pace  of  a 
brisk  walk,  while  the  constable  follows  with  a 
whip  of  knotted  cords.  <f> A  strong-armed  fellow 
is  that  constable  ;  and  each  time  that  he  flourishes 
his  lash  in  the  air,  you  see  a  frown  wrinkling  and 
twisting  his  brow,  and,  at  the  same  instant,  a 
smile  upon  his  lips.  He  loves  his  business,  faith- 
ful officer  that  he  is,  and  puts  his  soul  into  every 
stroke,  zealous  to  fulfil  the  injunction  of  Major 
Hawthorne's  warrant,  in  the  spirit  and  to  the  let- 
ter. There  came  down  a  stroke  that  has  drawn 
blood!  Ten  such  stripes  are  to  be  given  in 
Salem,  ten  in  Boston,  and  ten  in  Dedham  ;  and, 
with  those  thirty  stripes  of  blood  upon  her,  she 
is  to  be  driven  into  the  forest.  $  The  crimson  trail 
goes  wavering  along  the  Main-street;  but  Heaven 
grant,  that,  as  the  rain  of  so  many  years  has  wept 
upon  it,  time  after  time,  and  washed  it  all  away, 
so  there  may  have  been  a  dew  of  mercy,  to  cleanse 
this  cruel  blood-stain  out  of  the  record  of  the 
persecutor's  life ! 

Pass  on,  thou  spectral  constable,  and  betake 
thee  to  thine  own  place  of  torment !  Meanwhile, 
by  the  silent  operation  of  the  mechanism  behind 
the  scenes,  a  considerable  space  of  time  would 
seem  to  have  lapsed  over  the  street.  <f>  The  older 
dwellings  now  begin  to  look  weather-beaten, 

44 


MAIN-  STREET 


through  the  effect  of  the  many  eastern  storms 
that  have  moistened  their  unpainted  shingles  and 
clapboards,  for  not  less  than  forty  years.  Such 
is  the  age  we  would  assign  to  the  town,  judging 
by  the  aspect  of  John  Massey,  the  first  town-born 
child,  whom  his  neighbours  now  call  Goodman 
Massey,  and  whom  we  see  yonder,  a  grave,  almost 
autumnal-looking  man,  with  children  of  his  own 
about  him.  $  To  the  patriarchs  of  the  settlement, 
no  doubt,  the  Main-street  is  still  but  an  affair  of 
yesterday,  hardly  more  antique,  even  if  destined 
to  be  more  permanent,  than  a  path  shovelled 
through  the  snow.  But  to  the  middle-aged  and 
elderly  men  who  came  hither  in  childhood  or 
early  youth,  it  presents  the  aspect  of  a  long  and 
well-established  .work,  on  which  they  have  ex- 
pended the  strength  and  ardor  of  their  life.  And 
the  younger  people,  native  to  the  street,  whose 
earliest  recollections  are  of  creeping  over  the 
paternal  threshold,  and  rolling  on  the  grassy  mar- 
gin of  the  track,  look  at  it  as  one  of  the  perdur- 
able things  of  our  mortal  state,  —  as  old  as  the 
hills  of  the  great  pasture,  or  the  headland  at  the 
harbor's  mouth.  Their  fathers  and  grandsires 
tell  them,  how,  within  a  few  years  past,  the  forest 
stood  here  with  but  a  lonely  track  beneath  its 
tangled  shade.  Vain  legend !  They  cannot  make 
it  true  and  real  to  their  conceptions. <f>  With  them, 
moreover,  the  Main-street  is  a  street  indeed, 

45 


MA  IN-  S  TREE  T 


worthy  to  hold  its  way  with  the  thronged  and 
stately  avenues  of  cities  beyond  the  sea.  $  The 
old  Puritans  tell  them  of  the  crowds  that  hurry 
along  Cheapside  and  Fleet-street  and  the  Strand, 
and  of  the  rush  of  tumultuous  life  at  Temple  Bar. 
They  describe  London  Bridge,  itself  a  street, 
with  a  row  of  houses  on  each  side.  They  speak 
of  the  vast  structure  of  the  Tower,  and  the 
solemn  grandeur  of  Westminster  Abbey.  The 
children  listen,  and  still  inquire  if  the  streets  of 
London  are  longer  and  broader  than  the  one  be- 
fore their  father's  door;  if  the  Tower  is  bigger 
than  the  jail  in  Prison  Lane ;  if  the  old  Abbey 
will  hold  a  larger  congregation  than  our  meeting- 
house. Nothing  impresses  them,  except  their 
own  experience. 

It  seems  all  a  fable,  too,  that  wolves  have  ever 
prowled  here;  and  not  less  so,  that  the  Squaw 
Sachem,  and  the  Sagamore  her  son,  once  ruled 
over  this  region,  and  treated  as  sovereign  po- 
tentates with  the  English  settlers,  then  so  few  and 
storm-beaten,  now  so  powerful.  There  stand  some 
school-boys,  you  observe,  in  a  little  group  around 
a  drunken  Indian,  himself  a  prince  of  the  Squaw 
Sachem's  lineage.  He  brought  hither  some  bea- 
ver-skins for  sale,  and  has  already  swallowed  the 
larger  portion  of  their  price,  in  deadly  draughts 
of  fire-water.  $  Is  there  not  a  touch  of  pathos  in 
that  picture  ?  and  does  it  not  go  far  towards  tell- 

46 


MAIN-  8TREE  T 


ing  the  whole  story  of  the  vast  growth  and  pros- 
perity of  one  race,  and  the  fated  decay  of  another? 
—  the  children  of  the  stranger  making  game  of 
the  great  Squaw  Sachem's  grandson  ! 

But  the  whole  race  of  red  men  have  not  van- 
ished with  that  wild  princess  and  her  posterity. 
This  march  of  soldiers  along  the  street  betokens 
the  breaking-out  of  King  Phillip's  war;  and  these 
young  men,  the  flower  of  Essex,  are  on  their  way 
to  defend  the  villages  on  the  Connecticut;  where, 
at  Bloody  Brook,  a  terrible  blow  shall  be  smitten, 
and  hardly  one  of  that  gallant  band  be  left  alive. 
And  there,  at  that  stately  mansion,  with  its  three 
peaks  in  front,  and  its  two  little  peaked  towers, 
one  on  either  side  of  the  door,  we  see  brave  Cap- 
tain Gardner  issuing  forth,  clad  in  his  embroid- 
ered buff-coat,  and  his  plumed  cap  upon  his  head. 
His  trusty  sword,  in  its  steel  scabbard,  strikes 
clanking  on  the  door-step.  $  See  how  the  people 
throng  to  their  doors  and  windows,  as  the  cavalier 
rides  past,  reining  his  mettled  steed  so  gallantly, 
and  looking  so  like  the  very  soul  and  emblem  of 
martial  achievement,  —  destined,  too,  to  meet  a 
warrior's  fate,  at  the  desperate  assault  on  the  for- 
tress of  the  Narragansetts ! 

"The  mettled  steed  looks  like  a  pig,"  inter- 
rupts the  critic,  "and  Captain  Gardner  himself 
like  the  devil,  though  a  very  tame  one,  and  on  a 
most  diminutive  scale." 

47 


MA  IN-  S  TREE  T 


"Sir,  sir!"  cries  the  persecuted  showman,  los- 
ing all  patience,  —  for,  indeed,  he  had  particular- 
ly prided  himself  on  these  figures  of  Captain 
Gardner  and  his  horse,  —  "I  see  that  there  is  no 
hope  of  pleasing  you.  Pray,  sir,  do  me  the  favor 
to  take  back  your  money,  and  withdraw !  " 

"  Not  I ! "  answers  the  unconscionable  critic. 
"I  am  just  beginning  to  get  interested  in  the 
matter.  Come !  turn  your  crank,  and  grind  out 
a  few  more  of  these  fooleries." 

The  showman  rubs  his  brow  impulsively, 
whisks  the  little  rod  with  which  he  points  out  the 
notabilities  of  the  scene,  —  but,  finally,  with  the 
inevitable  acquiescence  of  all  public  servants, 
resumes  his  composure,  and  goes  on. 

Pass  onward,  onward,  Time !  Build  up  new 
houses  here,  and  tear  down  thy  works  of  yester- 
day, that  have  already  the  rusty  moss  upon  them ! 
Summon  forth  the  minister  to  the  abode  of  the 
young  maiden,  and  bid  him  unite  her  to  the  joy- 
ful bridegroom  !  Let  the  youthful  parents  carry 
their  first-born  to  the  meeting-house,  to  receive 
the  baptismal  rite  !  Knock  at  the  door,  whence 
the  sable  line  of  the  funeral  is  next  to  issue ! 
Provide  other  successive  generations  of  men,  to 
trade,  talk,  quarrel,  or  walk  in  friendly  inter- 
course along  the  street,  as  their  fathers  did  be- 
fore them!  Do  all  thy  daily  and  accustomed 
business,  Father  Time,  in  this  thoroughfare, 

48 


MA  IN-  S  TREE  T 


which  thy  footsteps,  for  so  many  years,  have  now 
made  dusty!  But  here,  at  last,  thou  leadest 
along  a  procession  which,  once  witnessed,  shall 
appear  no  more,  and  be  remembered  only  as  a 
hideous  dream  of  thine,  or  a  frenzy  of  thy  old 
brain. 

"  Turn  your  crank,  I  say,"  bellows  the  remorse- 
less critic,  "and  grind  it  out,  whatever  it  be, 
without  further  preface  !  " 

The  showman  deems  it  best  to  comply. 

Then,  here  comes  the  worshipful  Capt.  Cur- 
wen,  Sheriff  of  Essex,  on  horseback,  at  the  head 
of  an  armed  guard,  escorting  a  company  of  con- 
demned prisoners  from  the  jail  to  their  place  of 
execution  on  Gallows  Hill.  The  witches !  There 
is  no  mistaking  them  !  The  witches !  As  they 
approach  up  Prison  Lane,  and  turn  into  the  Main- 
street,  let  us  watch  their  faces,  as  if  we  made  a 
part  of  the  pale  crowd  that  presses  so  eagerly 
about  them,  yet  shrinks  back  writh  such  shudder- 
ing dread,  leaving  an  open  passage  betwixt  a 
dense  throng  on  either  side.  $  Listen  to  what  the 
people  say. 

There  is  old  George  Jacobs,  knowrn  hereabouts, 
these  sixty  years,  as  a  man  whom  we  thought 
upright  in  all  his  wray  of  life,  quiet,  blameless,  a 
good  husband  before  his  pious  wife  was  sum- 
moned from  the  evil  to  come,  and  a  good  father 
to  the  children  whom  she  left  him.  Ah!  but 

49 


MA  IN-  S  TREE  T 


when  that  blessed  woman  went  to  heaven,  George 
Jacob's  heart  was  empty,  his  hearth  lonely,  his 
life  broken  up;  his  children  were  married,  and 
betook  themselves  to  habitations  of  their  own ; 
and  Satan,  in  his  wanderings  up  and  down,  beheld 
this  forlorn  old  man,  to  whom  life  was  a  sameness 
and  a  weariness,  and  found  the  way  to  tempt  him. 
So  the  miserable  sinner  was  prevailed  with  to 
mount  into  the  air,  and  career  among  the  clouds ; 
and  he  is  proved  to  have  been  present  at  a  witch- 
meeting  as  far  off  as  Falmouth,  on  the  very  same 
night  that  his  next  neighbors  saw  him,  wilfr  his 
rheumatic  stoop,  going  in  at  his  own  door. f>fr here 
is  John  Willard  too ;  an  honest  man  we  thought 
him,  and  so  shrewd  and  active  in  his  business,  so 
practical,  so  intent  on  every-day  affairs,  so  con- 
stant at  his  little  place  of  trade,  where  he  bartered 
English  goods  for  Indian  corn  and  all  kinds  of 
country  produce !  How  could  such  a  man  find 
time,  or  what  could  put  it  into  his  mind,  to  leave 
his  proper  calling,  and  become  a  wizard?  It  is  a 
mystery,  unless  the  Black  Man  tempted  him  with 
great  heaps  of  gold.  See  that  aged  couple,  —  a 
sad  sight  truly,  —  John  Proctor,  and  his  wife 
Elizabeth.^ If  there  were  two  old  people  in  all 
the  county  of  Essex  who  seemed  to  have  led  a 
true  Christian  life,  and  to  be  treading  hopefully 
the  little  remnant  of  their  earthly  path,  it  was 
this  very  pair.  Yet  have  we  heard  it  sworn,  to 

50 


MAIN-  S  TREE  T 


the  satisfaction  of  the  worshipful  Chief  Justice 
Sewell,  and  all  the  Court  and  Jury,  that  Proctor 
and  his  wife  have  shown  their  withered  faces  at 
children's  bedsides,  mocking,  making  mouths,  and 
affrighting  the  poor  little  innocents  in  the  night- 
time. They,  or  their  spectral  appearances,  have 
stuck  pins  into  the  Afflicted  Ones,  and  thrown 
them  into  deadly  fainting-fits  with  a  touch,  or  but 
a  look.  And,  while  we  supposed  the  old  man  to 
be  reading  the  Bible  to  his  old  wife,  —  she  mean- 
while knitting  in  the  chimney-corner,  —  the  pair 
of  hoary  reprobates  have  whisked  up  the  chim- 
ney, both  on  one  broomstick,  and  flown  away  to 
a  witch-communion,  far  into  the  depths  of  the 
chill,  dark  forest.  How  foolish !  Were  it  only 
for  fear  of  rheumatic  pains  in  their  old  bones, 
they  had  better  have  stayed  at  home.  But  away 
they  went ;  and  the  laughter  of  their  decayed, 
cackling  voices  has  been  heard  at  midnight,  aloft 
in  the  air.  Now,  in  the  sunny  noontide,  as  they 
go  tottering  to  the  gallows,  it  is  the  devil's  turn 
to  laughJ 

Behind  these  two,  —  who  help  another  along, 
and  seem  to  be  comforting  and  encouraging  each 
other,  in  a  manner  truly  pitiful,  if  it  were  not  a 
sin  to  pity  the  old  witch  and  wizard,  —  behind 
them  comes  a  woman,  with  a  dark,  proud  face 
that  has  been  beautiful,  and  a  figure  that  is  still 
majestic.  Do  you  know  her?  It  is  Martha  Car- 
si 


MA  IN-  S  T  R  E  E  T 


rier,  whom  the  devil  found  in  a  humble  cottage, 
and  looked  into  her  discontented  heart,  and  saw 
pride  there,  and  tempted  her  with  his  promise 
that  she  should  be  Queen  of  Hell.  And  now, 
with  that  lofty  demeanor,  she  is  passing  to  her 
kingdom,  and,  by  her  unquenchable  pride,  trans- 
forms this  escort  of  shame  into  a  triumphal  pro- 
cession, that  shall  attend  her  to  the  gates  of  her 
infernal  palace,  and  seat  her  upon  the  fiery  throne. 
Within  this  hour,  she  shall  assume  her  royal 
dignity. 

Last  of  the  miserable  train  comes  a  man  clad 
in  black,  of  small  stature  and  a  dark  complexion, 
with  a  clerical  band  about  his  neck.  Many  a 
time,  in  the  years  gone  by,  that  face  has  been  up- 
lifted heavenward  from  the  pulpit  of  the  East 
Meeting-house,  when  the  Rev.  Mr.  Burroughs 
seemed  to  worship  God.  What !  —  he  ?  The  holy 
man!  —  the  learned!  —  the  wise!  How  has  the 
devil  tempted  him  V  His  fellow-criminals,  for  the 
most  part,  are  obtuse,  uncultivated  creatures,  some 
of  them  scarcely  half-witted  by  nature,  and  others 
greatly  decayed  in  their  intellects  through  age. 
They  were  an  easy  prey  for  the  destroyer.  Not 
so  with  this  George  Burroughs,  as  we  judge  by 
the  inward  light  which  glows  through  his  dark 
countenance,  and,  we  might  almost  say,  glorifies 
his  figure,  in  spite  of  the  soil  and  haggardness 
of  long  imprisonment,  —  in  spite  of  the  heavy 


MAIN-  STREET 


shadow  that  must  fall  on  him,  while  Death  is 
walking  by  his  side.  What  bribe  could  Satan 
offer,  rich  enough  to  tempt  and  overcome  this 
man  ?  Alas !  it  may  have  been  in  the  very  strength 
of  his  high  and  searching  intellect,  that  the 
Tempter  found  the  weakness  which  betrayed  him. 
He  yearned  for  knowledge ;  he  went  groping  on- 
ward into  a  world  of  mystery;  at  first,  as  the 
witnesses  have  sworn,  he  summoned  up  the  ghosts 
of  his  two  dead  wives,  and  talked  with  them  of 
matters  beyond  the  grave;  and,  when  their  re- 
sponses failed  to  satisfy  the  intense  and  sinful 
craving  of  his  spirit,  he  called  on  Satan,  and  was 
heard.  Yet  —  to  look  at  him  —  who,  that  had 
not  known  the  proof,  could  believe  him  guilty? 
Who  would  not  say,  while  we  see  him  offering 
comfort  to  the  weak  and  aged  partners  of  his 
horrible  crime,  —  while  we  hear  his  ejaculations 
of  prayer,  that  seem  to  bubble  up  out  of  the 
depths  of  his  heart,  and  fly  heavenward,  un- 
awares,—  while  we  behold  a  radiance  brighten- 
ing on  his  features  as  from  the  other  world,  which 
is  but  a  few  steps  off,  —  who  would  not  say,  that, 
over  the  dusty  track  of  the  Main-street,  a  Chris- 
tian saint  is  now  going  to  a  martyr's  death  ?  May 
not  the  Arch  Fiend  have  been  too  subtle  for  the 
court  and  jury,  and  betrayed  them  —  laughing  in 
his  sleeve  the  while  —  into  the  awful  error  of 
pouring  out  sanctified  blood  as  an  acceptable  sac- 

53 


MAIN-  8  TREE  T 


rifice  upon  God's  altar?  Ah!  no;  for  listen  to 
wise  Cotton  Mather,  who,  as  he  sits  there  on  his 
horse,  speaks  comfortably  to  the  perplexed  mul- 
titude, and  tells  them  that  all  has  been  religiously 
and  justly  done,  and  that  Satan's  power  shall  this 
day  receive  its  death-blow  in  New  England. 

Heaven  grant  it  be  so!  —  the  great  scholar 
must  be  right !  so,  lead  the  poor  creatures  to  their 
death !  Do  you  see  that  group  of  children  and 
half-grown  girls,  and,  among  them,  an  old,  hag- 
like  Indian  woman,  Tituba  by  name  ?  Those  are 
the  Afflicted  Ones,  dp)  Behold,  at  this  very  instant, 
a  proof  of  Satan's  power  and  malice !  Mercy 
Parris,  the  minister's  daughter,  has  been  smitten 
by  a  flash  of  Martha  Carrier's  eye,  and  falls 
down  in  the  street,  writhing  with  horrible  spasms 
and  foaming  at  the  mouth,  like  the  possessed  ones 
spoken  of  in  Scripture.  Hurry  on  the  accursed 
witches  to  the  gallows,  ere  they  do  more  mis- 
chief! —  ere  they  fling  out  their  withered  arms, 
and  scatter  pestilence  by  handfuls  among  the 
crowd !  —  ere,  as  their  parting  legacy,  they  cast 
a  blight  over  the  land,  so  that  henceforth  it  may 
bear  no  fruit  nor  blade  of  grass,  and  be  fit  for 
nothing  but  a  sepulchre  for  their  unhallowed 
["carcasses!  So,  on  they  go;  and  old  George 
Jacobs  has  stumbled  by  reason  of  his  infirmity : 
but  Goodman  Proctor  and  his  wife  lean  on  one 
another,  and  walk  at  a  reasonably  steady  pace, 

54 


MA  IN-  8  TREE  T 


considering  their  age.  Mr.  Burroughs  seems  to 
administer  counsel  to  Martha  Carrier,  whose  face 
and  mien,  methinks,  are  milder  and  humbler  than 
they  were.^jXiTiong  the  multitude,  meanwhile, 
there  is  horror,  fear,  and  distrust;  and  friend 
looks  askance  at  friend,  and  the  husband  at  his 
wife,  and  the  wife  at  him,  and  even  the  mother  at 
her  little  child ;  as  if,  in  every  creature  that  God 
has  made,  they  suspected  a  witch,  or  dreaded  an 
accuserj  Never,  never  again,  whether  in  this  or 
any  other  shape,  may  Universal  Madness  riot  in 
the  Main-streetjf 

I  perceive  in  your  eyes,  my  indulgent  specta- 
tors, the  criticism  which  you  are  too  kind  to  utter. 
These  scenes,  you  think,  are  all  too  sombre.  So, 
indeed,  they  are ;  but  the  blame  must  rest  on  the 
sombre  spirit  of  our  forefathers,  who  wove  their 
web  of  life  with  hardly  a  single  thread  of  rose- 
color  or  gold,  and  not  on  me,  who  have  a  tropic 
love  of  sunshine,  and  would  gladly  gild  all  the 
world  with  it,  if  I  knew  where  to  find  so  much. 
That  you  may  believe  me,  I  will  exhibit  one  of 
the  only  class  of  scenes,  so  far  as  my  investiga- 
tion has  taught  me,  in  which  our  ancestors  were 
wont  to  steep  their  tough  old  hearts  in  wine  and 
strong  drink,  and  indulge  an  outbreak  of  grisly 
jollity. 

Here  it  comes,  out  of  the  same  house  whence 
we  saw  brave  Captain  Gardner  go  forth  to  the 

55 


MAIN-  S  TREE  T 


wars.  What!  A  coffin,  borne  on  men's  shoulders, 
and  six  aged  gentlemen  as  pall-bearers,  and  a 
long  train  of  mourners,  with  black  gloves  and 
black  hat-bands,  and  every  thing  black,  save  a 
white  handkerchief  in  each  mourner's  hand,  to 
wipe  away  his  tears  withal.  <f>  Now,  my  kind  pa- 
trons, you  are  angry  with  me.  You  were  bidden 
to  a  bridal-dance,  and  find  yourselves  walking  in 
a  funeral  procession.  Even  so ;  but  look  back 
through  all  the  social  customs  of  New  England, 
in  the  first  century  of  her  existence,  and  read  all 
her  traits  of  character ;  and  if  you  find  one  occa- 
sion, other  than  a  funeral-feast,  where  jollity  was 
sanctioned  by  universal  practice,  I  will  set  fire  to 
my  puppet-show  without  another  word.  These  are 
the  obsequies  of  old  Governor  Bradstreet,  the  pa- 
triarch and  survivor  of  the  first  settlers,  who,  hav- 
ing intermarried  with  the  Widow  Gardner,  is  now 
resting  from  his  labors,  at  the  great  age  of  ninety- 
four.  The  white-bearded  corpse,  which  was  his 
spirit's  earthly  garniture,  now  lies  beneath  yonder 
coffin-lid.  Many  a  cask  of  ale  and  cider  is  on 
tap,  and  many  a  draught  of  spiced  wine  and 
aquavitae  has  been  quaffed.  Else  why  should  the 
bearers  stagger,  as  they  tremulously  uphold  the 
coffin?  —  and  the  aged  pall-bearers,  too,  as  they 
strive  to  walk  solemnly  beside  it?  —  and  where- 
fore do  the  mourners  tread  on  one  another's 
heels?  —  and  why,  if  we  may  ask  without  offence, 

56 


MAIN-  STREE  T 


should  the  nose  of  the  Reverend  Mr.  Noyes, 
through  which  he  has  just  been  delivering  the 
funeral  discourse,  glow  like  a  ruddy  coal  of  fire  ? 
Well,  well,  old  friends!  Pass  on,  with  your 
burthen  of  mortality,  and  lay  it  in  the  tomb  with 
jolly  hearts.  $  People  should  be  permitted  to  en- 
joy themselves  in  their  own  fashion;  every  man 
to  his  taste ;  but  New  England  must  have  been  a 
dismal  abode  for  the  man  of  pleasure,  when  the 
only  boon-companion  was  Death ! 

Under  cover  of  a  mist  that  has  settled  over  the 
scene,  a  few  years  flit  by,  and  escape  our  notice. 
As  the  atmosphere  becomes  transparent,  we  per- 
ceive a  decrepit  grandsire,  hobbling  along  the 
street.  Do  you  recognize  him?  We  saw  him, 
first,  as  the  baby  in  Goodwife  Massey's  arms, 
when  the  primeval  trees  were  flinging  their  shad- 
ow over  Roger  Conant's  cabin ;  we  have  seen 
him,  as  the  boy,  the  youth,  the  man,  bearing  his 
humble  part  in  all  the  successive  scenes,  and 
forming  the  index-figure  whereby  to  note  the  age 
of  his  coeval  town.  And  here  he  is,  Old  Goodman 
Massey,  taking  his  last  walk,  —  often  pausing, — 
often  leaning  over  his  staff,  —  and  calling  to  mind 
whose  dwelling  stood  at  such  and  such  a  spot, 
and  whose  field  or  garden  occupied  the  site  of 
those  more  recent  houses.  He  can  render  a  rea- 
son for  all  the  bends  and  deviations  of  the  thor- 
oughfare, which,  in  its  flexible  and  plastic  in- 

57 


MAIN-  S  TREE  T 


fancy,  was  made  to  swerve  aside  from  a  straight 
line,  in  order  to  visit  every  settler's  door.  The 
Main-street  is  still  youthful ;  the  coeval  Man  is  in 
his  latest  age.  Soon  he  will  be  gone,  a  patriarch 
of  fourscore,  yet  shall  retain  a  sort  of  infantine 
life  in  our  local  history,  as  the  first  town-born 
child. 

Behold  here  a  change,  wrought  in  the  twink- 
ling of  an  eye,  like  an  incident  in  a  tale  of  magic, 
even  while  your  observation  has  been  fixed  upon 
the  scene.  The  Main-street  has  vanished  out  of 
sight.  In  its  stead  appears  a  wintry  waste  of 
snow,  with  the  sun  just  peeping  over  it,  cold  and 
bright,  and  tinging  the  white  expanse  with  the 
faintest  and  most  ethereal  rose-color.  This  is 
the  Great  Snow  of  1717,  famous  for  the  mountain- 
drifts  in  which  it  buried  the  whole  country.  It 
would  seem  as  if  the  street,  the  growth  of  which 
we  have  noted  so  attentively,  —  following  it  from 
its  first  phase,  as  an  Indian  track,  until  it  reached 
the  dignity  of  side-walks,  —  were  all  at  once  oblit- 
erated, and  resolved  into  a  drearier  pathlessness 
than  when  the  forest  covered  it.  $  The  gigantic 
swells  and  billows  of  the  snow  have  swept  over 
each  man's  metes  and  bounds,  and  annihilated  all 
the  visible  distinctions  of  human  property.  So 
that  now,  the  traces  of  former  times  and  hitherto 
accomplished  deeds  being  done  away,  mankind 
should  be  at  liberty  to  enter  on  new  paths,  and 

58 


MAIN-  S  TREE  T 


guide  themselves  by  other  laws  than  heretofore ; 
if,  indeed,  the  race  be  not  extinct,  and  it  be  worth 
our  while  to  go  on  with  the  march  of  life,  over 
the  cold  and  desolate  expanse  that  lies  before  us. 
It  may  be,  however,  that  matters  are  not  so  desper- 
ate as  they  appear.  That  vast  icicle,  glittering  so 
cheerlessly  in  the  sunshine,  must  be  the  spire  of 
the  meeting-house,  incrusted  with  frozen  sleet. 
Those  great  heaps,  too,  which  we  mistook  for 
drifts,  are  houses,  buried  up  to  their  eaves,  and 
with  their  peaked  roofs  rounded  by  the  depth  of 
snow  upon  them.  There,  now,  comes  a  gush  of 
smoke  from  what  I  judge  to  be  the  chimney  of 
the  Ship  Tavern  —  and  another  —  another  —  and 
another  —  from  the  chimneys  of  other  dwellings, 
where  fireside  comfort,  domestic  peace,  the  sports 
of  children,  and  the  quietude  of  age,  are  living 
yet,  in  spite  of  the  frozen  crust  above  them. 

But  it  is  time  to  change  the  scene.  Its  dreary 
monotony  shall  not  test  your  fortitude  like  one  of 
our  actual  New  England  winters,  which  leave  so 
large  a  blank  —  so  melancholy  a  death-spot  —  in 
lives  so  brief  that  they  ought  to  be  all  summer- 
time. Here,  at  least,  I  may  claim  to  be  ruler  of 
the  seasons.  One  turn  of  the  crank  shall  melt 
away  the  snow  from  the  Main-street,  and  show 
the  trees  in  their  full  foliage,  the  rose-bushes  in 
bloom,  and  a  border  of  green  grass  along  the 
side-walk.  There!  But  what!  How!  The  scene 

59 


MA  IN-  8  TREE  T 


will  not  move.  A  wire  is  broken.  The  street  con- 
tinues buried  beneath  the  snow,  and  the  fate  of 
Herculaneum  and  Pompeii  has  its  parallel  in  this 
catastrophe. 

Alas  !  my  kind  and  gentle  audience,  you  know 
not  the  extent  of  your  misfortune.  The  scenes 
to  come  were  far  better  than  the  past.  The  street 
itself  would  have  been  more  worthy  of  pictorial 
exhibition ;  the  deeds  of  its  inhabitants,  not  less 
so.  And  how  would  your  interest  have  deepened, 
as,  passing  out  of  the  cold  shadow  of  antiquity, 
in  my  long  and  weary  course,  I  should  arrive 
within  the  limits  of  man's  memory,  and,  leading 
you  at  last  into  the  sunshine  of  the  present,  should 
give  a  reflex  of  the  very  life  that  is  flitting  past 
us !  Your  own  beauty,  my  fair  townswomen, 
would  have  beamed  upon  you,  out  of  my  scene. 
Not  a  gentleman  that  walks  the  street  but  should 
have  beheld  his  own  face  and  figure,  his  gait,  the 
peculiar  swing  of  his  arm,  and  the  coat  that  he 
put  on  yesterday.  Then,  too,  —  and  it  is  what  I 
chiefly  regret,  —  I  had  expended  a  vast  deal  of 
light  and  brilliancy  on  a  representation  of  the 
street  in  its  whole  length,  from  Buffum's  Corner 
downward,  on  the  night  of  the  grand  illumination 
for  General  Taylor's  triumph.  Lastly,  I  should 
have  given  the  crank  one  other  turn,  and  have 
brought  out  the  future,  showing  you  who  shall 


MAIN-  S  TREE  T 


walk  the  Main-street  to-morrow,  and,  perchance, 
whose  funeral  shall  pass  through  it ! 

But  these,  like  most  other  human  purposes, 
lie  unaccomplished;  and  I  have  only  further  to 
say,  that  any  lady  or  gentleman,  who  may  feel 
dissatisfied  with  the  evening's  entertainment, 
shall  receive  back  the  admission  fee  at  the  door. 

"  Then  give  me  mine,"  cries  the  critic,  stretch- 
ing out  his  palm.  "  I  said  that  your  exhibition 
would  prove  a  humbug,  and  so  it  has  turned  out. 
So  hand  over  my  quarter !  " 


61 


IK. 


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